The union representing 48,000 graduate students, teaching assistants, researchers and other student workers at the University of California's 10 campuses voted to authorize a strike and cause “maximum chaos,” claiming that the rights of its workers have been raped at several universities for actions against pro-Palestinian protests, union leaders announced Wednesday afternoon.
The strikes, which are still being planned, were approved by 79% of the 19,780 United Auto Workers Local 4811 members who voted. The strike vote comes as campuses across the UC system have been hit by tensions and protests over the war between Israel and Hamas, including a violent mob attack on a pro-Palestinian camp at UCLA.
Although the vote gives the union permission to strike Wednesday night, it was unclear when or where the strikes would occur. The union represents assistant professors, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral fellows.
The union reprimanded UCLA, UC San Diego and UC Irvine for cracking down on pro-Palestinian student protesters. On Wednesday night, dozens of police officers in riot gear moved toward pro-Palestinian protesters at the ICU who occupied and blocked the physical sciences lecture hall.
Rafael Jaime, co-president of the union and a doctoral candidate in UCLA's English department, said the goal would be to “maximize chaos and confusion” at universities where the union alleges that officials have violated workers' rights over working conditions during student protests against Israel. -Hamas War.
“Our members have been beaten, shocked and pepper-sprayed, both by counter-protesters and law enforcement. As a union, it is our responsibility to stand by them,” the union said in a statement. “To deescalate the situation, the UC must substantially address the concerns raised by protesters, which focus on the UC's investments in companies and industries that benefit from the suffering in Gaza.”
In a letter sent Wednesday to graduate student workers, the University of California warned students not to strike.
“The University's position is that a union strike is illegal and, as a result, a work stoppage is not protected strike activity. This means that participating in the strike does not change, excuse, or modify an employee's normal job duties or expectations. And, unlike a protected strike, you could be subject to corrective action for failing to perform your duties,” the unsigned letter from the president’s office said.
The strike by academic workers would be modeled after last year's “stand-up” strikes against Ford, Stellantis and General Motors and similar to recent strikes at Southern California hotels. The strikes would not target all campuses at once, Jaime said, but one by one, depending on how receptive administrations are to pro-Palestinian activists.
UC Riverside and UC Berkeley have reached agreements with protesters to end the encampments and explore divestment from gun companies. Leaders of those universities have rejected calls to specifically attack Israel or to academically boycott exchange programs and partnerships with Israeli universities.
While some Jewish students have supported the pro-Palestinian protests, national Jewish groups have criticized the divestment push, saying it is anti-Semitic because it aims to delegitimize the only predominantly Jewish nation.
Union members began casting their votes online on Monday. The strikes, Jaime said, could last any period until the end of June. The period covers a critical time on campuses during final and graduation exercises.
In November and December 2022, the union walked for six weeks, achieving significant improvements in wages and working conditions and energizing a groundswell of union activism among academic workers across the country.
Before the results of the strike vote were known, the University of California said the union was inappropriately exerting its force on a political issue.
“UC believes the vote currently being conducted by UAW leadership sets a dangerous precedent that would introduce non-labor issues into labor agreements,” said UC Office of the President spokeswoman Heather Hansen.
The disagreement depends on whether student workers like Jaime, who was part of the pro-Palestinian protests at UCLA the night a violent mob attacked the camp, are striking over a “labor issue or a political speech,” said John Logan, professor at the University of California. Department of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University.
“The contract between the UAW and UC includes language about academic freedom, but the university could say, 'Yes, speech is protected, but the actions you took go far beyond speech, preventing students from entering into contact with academic freedom. [a] library or other campus [areas] that they are not protected,'” Logan said.
Another challenge was participation. Pro-Palestinian activism has reached all UC campuses, but has been strongest on those located in or near large cities. A union referendum last year in support of a permanent ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas and divestment passed by 90%, but received fewer than 6,000 votes in total. The most recent contract ratification had more than 36,000 votes. Turnout in the strike vote was high but lower than that for contract ratification.
While university presidents across the country have faced criticism for calling in police in riot gear to clear pro-Palestinian camps, the move to threaten a strike is one of the biggest moves by an American union in support of the Palestinians.
The vote came after the union filed charges with the state labor board over arrests of pro-Palestinian graduate students protesting at UCLA and suspensions and other disciplinary actions at UC San Diego and UC Irvine, accusing the universities of retaliating against students. workers and illegally changing workplace policies. to suppress pro-Palestinian speech.
Universities have generally said they were trying to ensure safe university environments while respecting free speech rights. Internal and external investigations are underway at UCLA.
Some members said they believed the union's criticism of the crackdown on campus protests did not go far enough. Many student protesters have called for defunding university police or for universities to promise to never call municipal police to campus again. The union did not include them in its strike-related demands.
“It's really disappointing to me, as a Black person, that the union hasn't taken a strong stance on policing and racial profiling on campus,” said Gene McAdoo, a doctoral student in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. “They present themselves as radicals, but they don't deal with this issue.”
McAdoo still voted in favor, he said, because “retaining our work gives us a lot of power and influence to pressure the UC administration to comply.” [Students for Justice in Palestine] divestment demands. That is the ultimate goal of this movement. But I also know that there is an undercurrent of people who are still pushing for police officers to get off campus.”
This is not the first time UAW workers have pushed for divestment. In 1973, Arab American workers at Detroit auto plants walked off the job in protest of the UAW's investment in Israeli bonds.
But for a union to vote on a strike while a contract is in place is “unheard of in modern times,” said Jeff Schuhrke, a labor historian who teaches at SUNY Empire State University.
While union demands for academic freedom, free speech, and protection from violence might focus on working conditions, they also explicitly support protesters' calls for divestment from weapons manufacturers and other companies that profit from the war. Israel in Gaza.
The strike vote “has nothing to do with the economy. It is not about an increase or more benefits. “It’s political,” Schuhrke said.
The professor said that goes back to the origins of the student labor movement, when the first graduate unions formed in the 1960s during the university free speech and anti-war movements.
AFT Local 1570, a union of teaching assistants formed at UC Berkeley amid the free speech movement on campus, voted in 1966 to strike against the University of California in response to police arresting students carrying out a sit-in around a U.S. Navy recruiting table on campus.
The Association of Teaching Assistants. of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which emerged from the anti-draft sit-in and campus demonstrations against Dow Chemical for its role in producing napalm and other weapons for the Vietnam War, is the oldest graduate union still exists in the US.
“The graduate union movement is coming full circle,” Schuhrke said.
